Why Scotty Doesn't Name Things
by Katie-Mariie
Summary: Kirk and Scotty are rightfully terrified by Uhura and Spock's strange behavior. Kirk/Spock, Scotty/Uhura. Title: The Things That Happened When Spock and Uhura Were Trying to Protect Uhura and Spock from Scotty and Kirk, or Why Scotty Doesn't Name Things


It starts out simple as things usually do. He's trying to remove the cover of a heating vent but all the screws are stripped. He's two minutes away from firing a bloody phaser at the damn thing when Spock walks by and tears the vent cover off like it 's tacked on with bubble gum. "Thanks. That's a mite impressive."

"Vulcans are three times stronger than humans."

"Neat."

He turns away to crawl inside the vent when he hears Spock say in a dangerously low voice, "That is a fact you should memorize for future reference."

--

It starts out simple and then gets ridiculously complicated as stuff usually does. He's in the mess snacking on replicated fries and she's just staring at him. He's not the kind of guy to object to a nice, long, lingering stare from a hot chick like her but this is not that kind of stare. It's the kind of stare that he and his cousins would give to the last piece of white meat on Thanksgiving before diving in all at once. He still has a scar on his wrist from being stabbed with a spork when he was ten. It's that deadly, primal look that makes him want to hide under the table.

Except, you know, he's not scared. Not of her. Not of anything. It's just a coincidence that he has a dream that night where he's being strangled to death by a giant pony tail.

--

"Mr. Scott, do you know much about Vulcan history?"

"Can't say I do. Wrench."

"Here."

"Thank you."

"While Vulcans are a peaceful race, they were once a violent, uncivilized people who would kill indiscriminately. An offense as small as hurting a kinsmen could result in mass murder."

"You don't say."

"Some evolutionary biologists believe that the savage instinct to protect those considered kin still exists in Vulcans today. They even hypothesize that the need to avenge family members with extreme violence continues to lie dormant in modern Vulcans. Of course, neither of these theories have been proven... yet."

He maintains enough dignity to wait until he's sure Spock has left to whimper.

--

He's the first to admit that the monthly book swap is a dumb idea... just not in front of Spock, who came up with it. He's never understood why people get so excited about going retro. If everyone just scanned their books into the computer they wouldn't have to swap every month. But it was Spock's idea and he doesn't want to get bitched at for not being supportive. Not that Spock bitches. He just sort of glares.

All interested parties are gathered in rec hall numero dos, chattering excitedly about the smell of books or whatever. The clock strikes the hour and Spock announces, "The exchange of literature may commence."

Good god, who was he sleeping with?

He mills around the room trying to find a suitable foster parent for the one book he owns, The Catcher in the Rye.

"Captain."

"Lieutenant."

"Is that J.D. Salinger?"

"Yeah."

"I've good things about him."

"Do you wanna...?"

"Sure."

She walks off with his baby, that damn ponytail switching from side to side. He looks at the book in his hands.

The Woman Warriors of the Bantu People by Saartje Muhoro.

He opens it.

"Oh, god..."

There were pictures. In color. Mostly red.

When Spock asks him later that night why Uhura's book is at the bottom of his trunk, Jim almost responds, "So it can't get me!"

--

Spock comes down to the engine room for what he and Keenser have dubbed, "Ridiculously Frightening Lessons in Vulcan History with Professor Spock." It wasn't a very good name but neither of them were very good at naming things. The new circuit board they made last week was called, "The Circuit Board that Does Several Things at One Time That Was Made by Scotty and Keenser When They Were Both Drunk on Scotch."

Spocks comes in and Keenser runs into a Jefferies tube and the little bastard is probably all the way on deck five when Scotty yells, "Come back here, you coward!"

"Hello, Mr. Scott."

"Hello, Mr. Spock. How-how are you doin' today?"

"Well."

"That's-that's good."

"Have you ever heard of the tal-shaya?"

"No. Cannae say I have."

"The tal-shaya is an ancient Vulcan mode of execution. It is performed swiftly and seamlessly by Vulcans. One must simply stand next to the victim and apply pressure to the neck until it breaks."

"You learn somethin' new everyday."

"As you were."

--

"This is a waste of time!" Bones says to the sensitivity trainer. "We've got a ship to run and you're calling us all in here to talk about our feelings like we're a bunch of priestesses on Rigel II."

"I understand why you might feel that way. I am simply here to help you deal with stress. Now, we're going to create some model situations and see how you would respond to them. Dr. McCoy, why don't you tell me what you would do if one of your fellow crewmen was severely injured."

"Hell, I don't know. I'm a doctor, not a doc... tor."

"Nice one, Bones."

"Shut up, Jim."

"Ah, yes. Lieutenant Uhura?"

"If a member of the crew was hurt, even just emotionally, the first thing I would do would be to track down the person who hurt them and kill them."

"Yes. Well. Will you meet with me after we're finished?"

--

"Scotty--"

"Capt'n--"

"--you have to stop this!"

"She's--"

"He's--"

"--trying to kill me!"

"Wait, what?" Jim asks.

"Your little Vulcan boyfriend has been sneakin' up on me and fillin' my mind with all of these... _facts_ about Vulcans and how they can kill ya just by lookin' atcha. It's gotten out of hand. I haven't seen Keenser in four days he's so scared. I keep hearin' him trembling in the bowels of the ship."

"Whoa, whoa. It's your little psycho girlfriend who's threatening me! She keeps glaring at me like I'm a turkey covered in cranberry sauce!"

"What?"

"It's an American thing."

"Aye."

"I haven't slept in two days. I'm afraid she's gonna make a Kirk suit out of my skin!"

"What?"

"Silence of the Lambs? You've never seen it?"

"No, no. But I've heard good things."

"It's really good. It's a classic. You should watch it."

"I know, I know. It's on my list. But who has the time nowadays?"

"I know really... Wait, wait. We are getting distracted and that is just what they want!"

"The silents lambs?"

"No! Spock and Uhura!"

"That makes much more since a bunch of quiet sheep trying to get us to lose focus. What would be the motivation behind that sort of thing?"

"You have to talk to her!"

"Only if you talk to him."

"Right."

--

"You didn't talk to her, did you?"

"No, she's scary!"

"Well, duh."

"You dinna talk to him either!"

"I tried. I mentioned your name and he got this far off look in his eyes like he was meditating. It was creepy."

"That's what I been tellin' you!"

"What are we gonna do?"

"We'll go somewhere they can never find us!"

"We could go back to Delta Vega!"

"Brilliant! I'll get my parka."

"Wait... we can't leave. We love them."

"Shite. I forgot about that."

"There's got to be a reason why they're being so..."

"Aggressive? Crazy? Murderous?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Spock's been going on about how Vulcan's are stronger than humans and giving a bunch of Vulcan trivia. Maybe he thinks I'm ignorant in the ways of Vulcan. Maybe he thinks I'm racist."

"No. That can't be it. He hasn't been doing it to McCoy."

"Aye. By the way, could you tell McCoy to stop calling me a 'bagpipe-playing, Scotch-drinkin', haggis eater?' It's a wee bit racially insensitive."

"Yeah. I'll talk to him about it."

"I wouldn't usually worry about it but he does it in front of Keenser and what kind of example does that show the little alien bastard?"

"I'll take care of it."

"Thanks. So what did Nyota--"

"Does she tell everyone her first name except for me?"

"You've got to earn it, Capt'n. So what did she tell you?"

"She didn't really tell me anything. At first she would just glare at me and then she gave me this book about Bantu women warriors--"

"That book is dead scary! Did you see the picture on page twenty-eight?"

"Yeah! With all the blood and the soup!"

"What were they doin' with that soup?"

"I don't know! And then, you remember what she said to the sensitivity trainer!"

"Yeah. That was quite out of character!"

"So what does it mean? Why are they only acting this way towards us? What sets us apart? What type of... Oh."

"We're idiots. I mean, we're geniuses but we're idiots."

"It really should not have taken us that long to figure this out."

"It's kind of sweet in a weird, demented way if you think about it. They just want what's best for their friend."

"Do you think they're cheating on us?"

"No. But if they were I would kill him. With a sword."

"Oh yeah. I would smother her with her own hair."

"Oh. That's inventive."

"I thought so."

"So what are we gonna do?"

"Well..."

--

"You go first."

"Why do I have to go first?"

"Because I'm the captain and I say so!"

"I cannae do it! Not while he's sitting right next to her!"

"That's the point! If he doesn't see it how will he know you're serious?"

"I'm scared! What if I go to sit down and he Titian's me?"

"What?"

"You know, the Vulcan neck break thing."

"Tal-shaya?"

"Yeah, what if he does that word you just said to me?"

"He's not going to ritually execute you in the middle of the cafeteria."

"Do you really know that he won't? I mean, really?"

"Fine. We'll walk up together."

"Mr. Spock."

"Mr. Scott."

"Miss Uhura."

"Captain."

"Mr. Spock."

"Mr. Scott."

"Miss Uhura."

"Captain."

"Rocky! What? Don' tell me you've never the Rocky Horror Picture Show before? It's bloody brilliant! You get all dressed up and you yell out things like 'If you're arsehole smokes after sex use more lube!' It's fantastic! We should do a production here. Mr. Spock could be Brad. I could be--"

"So Scotty, tell me about that correspondence course you just enrolled in."

"Oh, yeah. It's about sixteen Earth weeks long. The professor seems great. Very helpful. He's got the whole course laid out for us on the syllabus."

"What was it you were taking again?"

"Beginning Swahili."

"Mr. Scott, I was unaware that you were interested in linguistics."

"I'll have to admit that I'm not too keen on learnin' every language in the galaxy, Mr. Spock, but if you're gonna learn another language it might as well be Swahili 'cause when you get down to it Swahili's really the language of Earth. I honestly don't understand why English is the Federation's official language when Swahili's there. Africa's the heart of the world and that makes Swahili the language of love. I think that the appointment of English as the official language is just another sign of racism on Earth. Yeah. And racism is bad. It is. It is very bad to be racist. If my own mother was bein' racist, I would walk right up to her and say, 'Hey, Stop bein' racist! It's not--'"

"_cough_My turn._cough_"

"Oh. I'm gonna grab some food. Does anybody want anything? Jim? How about a nice big American cheeseburger?"

"No."

"But, Capt'n, you love cheeseburgers. You have said to me on several occasions that they are your favorite food and you would sooner die a horrible, bloody, painful death than give them up."

"Well, Scotty, I've decided to give up eating meat."

"But, Jim, you said that being a vegetarian was like not really livin'."

"I know, but sometimes you have to forsake your own pleasure for the benefit of others. I couldn't eat a cheeseburger now, not even a replicated one, without thinking of a sad calf crying out for her mother who isn't there because I am eating her."

"That's beautiful, Capt'n."

"Also, vegetarianism is a more logical diet choice. Much healthier."

"Well, I'm going to grab some chicken."

"And I will go with you although I do not condone your meal plan."

"Do you think it worked?"

"Yeah. They were eating out of the palms of our hands."

"Did you see Spock when I called Swahili the language of love? He almost made an expression!"

"And when I was talking about the baby calf? Uhura looked at me and was not totally repulsed!"

"So are you really gonna give up meat?"

"I have to. Are you gonna learn Swahili?"

"Yeah. It cannae be worse than Doric."

--

"Keenser! It's safe to come out--"

"Mr. Scott."

"Nyaah! Mr. Spock. You shouldnae sneak up on people like that. Especially when they're talking on The Thing That Makes Our Voices Come Out of Another One."

"You mean, a communicator?"

"Aye."

"I wanted to give you my sincerest--"

"You don' have to apologize to me."

"I know. As I was saying, I wanted to give you my sincerest warning that any emotional or physical harm inflicted upon Lieutenant Uhura by you will result in your severe disfigurement and possibly your death. That is all."

"Hey! I'm not gonna hurt her. I'd never want to hurt her. I'm learning bloody Swahili to show you that! Do you know that they have noises in Swahili that no sane person should ever make? Didya know that? I'm goin' out of my mind here. I get that you're protective of her. You two were together for a good while but you can't come in here threatenin' to Titian me to death! It's bad for crew morale and frankly, it's illogical."

"I understand. I acted inappropriately."

"I should say so!"

--

"Here's your book. It was really... interesting."

"If you hurt him, I will castrate you."

"God! Would you stop that? I get that you don't like me and you probably think that Spock could do much better but you can't keep interfering! I know you think you're just looking out for him and that's nice but he's a big boy. Oh, and, yeah, he's half-human and half special snowflake but I'm not gonna break him. If I really pissed him off he wouldn't go running to you he would kick my ass... which is oddly why this relationship works. You're the best friend and I'm the boyfriend. You're allowed to hate me but you can't make threats that could hurt this ship. Got it?"

--

"I had a most peculiar conversation with Mr. Scott today."

"Oh, yeah?"

"He said that I threatened to Titian him to death. What does that mean? I have a few theories. It could mean to dye another person's hair red without their consent or possibly throw a person with red hair at them. Or it could be to paint them in a style similar to that of Titian or to infect someone with the Bubonic plague which is how Titian--"

"He meant tal-shaya."

"That makes much more sense."

"You won't though."

"Of course not. That would be unbecoming of a Starfleet officer."

--

"Keenser!"

"Keenser!"

"It's safe now! The bad, green man won't try to hurt you!"

"I don't think this is working. Are you sure he's still even on board?"

"We haven't stopped anywhere since it started. The only place he could have gone is into the black. If he's hurt, I swear I will... think mean thoughts about Spock!"

"I'm sure he's fine. He's probably asleep somewhere. He hibernates, right?"

"Only when he's pregnant."

"...Buh?"

"That was my reaction too. He is, in all senses of the word, an abomination."

"But he's your best friend."

"Sadly, yes. Being stuck on an ice planet with only a demented midget alien, a broken Tribble, a handful of monsters, and some Vulcan from the future limits one's social engagements."

"Well, I think it is very cute."

"Cute? You don't think anythin's cute. Not even the little Russian kid and he's bloody adorable!"

"Should I be jealous?"

"Nah. He's not interested. Besides, it'd never work out. I cannae understand a damn thing he says... Should I be jealous?"

"Of Chekov?"

"You know what I'm talkin' about. Jim told me you been givin' him the evil eye over Spock."

"It's not like that... I just don't want Spock to get hurt. How would you react if Kirk started going out with your best friend?"

"Well, now I have the image of the Capt'n and Keenser takin' a roll in the hay, thank you... And now they're havin' a baby together and buying his and his bath towels... You may have broken my brain entirely."

"I'm serious. I worry about Spock. I feel like I brought him to this world of human relationships and if he gets hurt I would be the one to blame."

"You cannae hover over him for the rest of your life. You've got to let the pointy-eared baby bird fly out of the nest eventually."

"I know. Frankly, I'm kind of humiliated at the way I'd been acting. Kirk confronted me about it today and when Jim Kirk of all people is lecturing you on professional conduct..."

"It's like havin' McCoy givin' you a lecture on racial sensitivity."

"This why I'd never go back to Spock... even if he developed an sudden interest in vaginas. You make me laugh... and Spock, well, he doesn't. Laughter actually frightens him."

"Aye, you remember that time Sulu started laughing real loud on the bridge and Spock pulled a phaser on him?"

"He said it sounded like a type of 'waterfowl in distress' was attacking the helm!"

"In what world would some rogue duck try to commandeer the Enterprise? And for what purposes? To search the galaxy for week old bread?"

"Stop it... I can't breath..."

"_Ninakupenda_... God, I hope I dinna arse that up too badly."

"No, that was great. I... I love you, too."

Keenser watches them kiss from the vent above. Humans can be so cute sometimes.


End file.
